St. Anthony Bidii Group

Jane takes care of 10 children at home. She joined One Acre Fund in order to access fertilizer and hybrid seeds to ensure food security for her family. In the recent 2011 season, she had an excellent maize yield harvesting 6 bags on ½ an acre of land. Before joining One Acre Fund, Jane was only able to harvest 2 bags of maize on ½ acre of land. With income from maize sales, Jane will educate her children, build a house and invest in livestock rearing.

Jane is the facilitator of the St. Anthony Bidii group. She is in the photograph with her group members and the Field Officer is standing to the left. Jane and her group joined One Acre Fund in the year 2011 and will re-enroll in the 2012 program. In 2012, the members of St. Anthony Bidii group will each plant maize plots between ½ and 1 acre of land.

With this loan, One Acre Fund will purchase fertilizer, seeds, and other important inputs to distribute to Jane and her group during Kenya’s next planting season in February 2012. The distribution of farming inputs is part of One Acre Fund’s integrated agriculture package, which includes training, reliable input supply (such as fertilizer and seeds), credit and insurance.

Additional Information

About One Acre Fund

With this loan, One Acre Fund will purchase fertilizer, seeds, and other important farming inputs to distribute to this farmer group during Kenya's next planting season in February. This distribution of farming inputs is part of One Acre Fund's integrated agriculture package, which includes training, reliable input supply (such as fertilizer and seeds), credit and insurance. Clients enroll between July and October for the following planting season, which begins in February. By purchasing inputs during these months, One Acre Fund is able to take advantage of the historically low farm input prices during this time of year in Kenya.

Members of One Acre Fund form groups in which each borrower guarantees the loans of all other borrowers in the group. One Acre Fund differs from a traditional microfinance institution, however, by allowing groups to split before the delivery of inputs at planting time. If a group were to split, each of the two new groups would have fewer members that could support a delinquency or default from a member. This may represent a different risk than that for a traditional MFI’s group loan.

Important Information About the Risk of One Acre Fund
One Acre Fund is not assigned a risk rating on Kiva. This is due to the fact that One Acre Fund’s business model differs enough from traditional microfinance models that Kiva’s current risk rating system is not applicable in accurately reflecting the risk assessment. Key risks and further information in making loans to One Acre Fund borrowers can be found on the organization’s partner page.

This is a Group Loan

In a group loan, each member of the group receives an individual loan but is part of a larger group of individuals. The group is there to provide support to the members and to provide a system of peer pressure, but groups may or may not be formally bound by a group guarantee. In cases where there is a group guarantee, members of the group are responsible for paying back the loans of their fellow group members in the case of delinquency or default.

Kiva's Field Partners typically feature one borrower from a group. The loan description, sector, and other attributes for a group loan profile are determined by the featured borrower's loan. The other members of the group are not required to use their loans for the same purpose.